In this era of competition and competitiveness regarding information of any kind, and especially the confidential information of a business, medical, legal, or scientific company or institution, the secure storage of such information is of critical importance to all businesses and institutions. While information is stored electronically and on various types of computer disks and drives, a large bulk of information is still recorded on paper files and documents, and must be securely stored with access controlled thereto. Thus, filing and storage cabinets are the primary storage device for all manner of hard copy records, files, and documents, and a wide range of locking, closing, latching and access devices and mechanisms have been used to safely store such vital items and control access to these items.
For example, representative references in the prior art that disclose drawer cabinets that include self-closing drawers in which the drawers are provided with a spring mechanism for biasing the drawer to a closed position upon release include: the Becker Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 2,873,159), the Rock Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,781), the Lam et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,953,233), the Wiklund et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 7,077,488), and the Lee Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 7,083,243).
The Chen Patent (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0261716) discloses a file cabinet system in which the drawer automatically locks when disposed in the closed position, and stays in that state until the locking device is released. Other Patents that disclose this type of assembly include: the Schaffert Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 1,006,983), the Wolters Patent (1,700,299), the Ratner Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,674,360), the Chovance et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,774,985), the Steinke Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,529), the McKernan et al. Patent (4,606,266), the Kritselis Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,721,347), and the Cho Patent (6,347,848).
References that disclose locks in general that require the lock to be in the locked position before the key can be removed from the lock include: the Schribner Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 851,900), the Diehl Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 973,920), the Lapidus Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 1,076,587), the Sedlacsek Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 1,154,271), the Wyckoff Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 1,239,244), and the Swanson Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 2,469,018).
References that disclose the general state of the art of locking mechanisms and assemblies include: the Heotes Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 1,450,974), the Miller et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 2,105,983), the Chatterson et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,689), and the Lambert Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,723,850).
Nonetheless, despite the wide-ranging ingenuity of the above mechanisms, assemblies, and devices in the security file, cabinet, and drawer fields, there remains a need for a security file cabinet assembly that includes the capability of returning the lock to the locked position when the key is released by the user and a constant rate return mechanism that returns the drawer to the closed position within the cabinet upon release of the drawer.